Our Newest Ph.D.'s (IREAP Ph.D. Page)
2012, Brian Layer (Physics), "Structured Plasma Waveguides and Deep EUV Generation Enabled by Intense Laser-Cluster Interactions"
2012, Seung Yong Lee (MSE), "Assembly of Silver Nanocube Clusters and Tuning of Surface Plasmon Resonances for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering"
2012, Steven Slotterback (Physics), "Particle Motion in Granular Materials: Three-Dimensional Imaging of Slow Flows and Compaction"
2012, Kevin Schoeffler (Physics), "Magnetic Islands in the Heliiosheath: Properties and Implications"
2012, Sanjeev Chauhan (Physics), "Dynamics on and of Complex Networks: Functional Communities and Epidemic Spreading"
2012, William Young (Physics), "Diamagnetism of a Supersonic Rotating Magnetized Plasma"
Our Newest Masters of Science (IREAP Masters of Science Page)
2012, Ychao Mo (ECE), "Experimental Study of Solitons on Intense Electron Beams"
2011, Hao Zhang (ECE), "Development of an Adaptive Masking Method to Image Beam Halo"
October 4, 2012 -- The Work of Hagerstrom, Murphy, Roy, et al. Highlighted in Physics Today
The work of Hagerstrom, Murphy, Roy, et al. has been highlighted in the Search and Discovery column of Physics Today, titled "Exotic chimera dynamics glimpsed in experiments" by Ashley G Smart published on page 17 of the October 2012 issue (doi:/10.1063/PT.3.1738). The original paper "Experimental observation of chimeras in coupled-map lattices" written by Aaron M. Hagerstrom, Thomas E. Murphy, Rajarshi Roy, Philipp Hövel, Iryna Omelchenko, and Eckehard Schöll, was published as a contributed article in the Sept. 2012 issue of Nature Physics (doi:10.1038/nphys2372).
September, 2012 -- Munday's Group Featured on Cover of JAP
The work of Prof. Munday's group is featured on the cover of the Journal of Applied Physics (Sept. 2012). The paper, entitled "The effect of photonic bandgap materials on the Shockley-Queisser limit," explores ways in which photonic crystals can be used to effectively modify the bandgap energy in photovoltaic devices, leading to high efficiency solar cells.
(Journal of Applied Physics, Sept. 2012)
August 3, 2012 -- MERIT-BIEN and TREND Fair 2012
Since 2003, the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, with support from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, has offered research opportunities for undergraduate students in the broad area of nonlinear dynamics. Research projects in the Training and Research Experience in Nonlinear Dynamics (TREND) program are theoretical, experiment, or both. This year's research topics included experimental studies of nonlinear systems; magnetic reconnection and the dynamics of energetic particles; nonlinear dynamics in charged particle beam systems; nonlinear dynamics in optical systems; the dynamics of soft matter, granular matter, and biomaterials; theoretical and computational studies of chaos and nonlinear dynamics, the experimental study of nonlinear and chaotic microwave circuits; dynamics and control of motion coordination in groups; and dynamics of living cells.
At the end of the 10-week summer program, students present their research at the MERIT_BIEN and TREND Fair. This year's Fair was held on August 3, 2012. The winner for the Best Overall Project for TREND was Kevin Hu (Duke University) for his project "The Effects of Nanoscale Topography on Palladin Dynamics in Human Pancreatic Stellate Cells." His advisor was Asst. Professor Arpita Upadhyaya.
There were two awards for Runner-Up for Best Overall Project for TREND:
Diego Alcala (University of Northern Colorado) and Katherine Sytwu (Rutgers University) for their project "Explosive Percolation in Directed Networks," advised by Asst. Prof. Michelle Girvan, Prof. Ed Ott, and Prof. Thomas Antonsen.
The other award for Runner-Up for Best Overall Project was awarded to Alexandra Day (Wellesley University) for her project "Rejuvenation of a Cesium-Based Dispenser Photocathode in Response to Atmospheric Contamination." Her advisor was Dr. Eric Montgomery.
For further information about the TREND program, please visit http://www.ireap.umd.edu/TREND/.
For further information about the MERIT-BIEN program, please visit http://www.ece.umd.edu/MERIT.
August 2012 -- Assistant Professor Jeremy Munday Wins NASA's Early Career Faculty Space Tech Research Grant
Assistant Professor Jeremy Munday (IREAP/ECE) has been awarded the Early Career Faculty Space Tech Research Grant from NASA for his proposal "Radiation Pressure on Tunable Optical Metamaterials for Propulsion and Steering without Moving Parts." His project explores a new concept in solar sails, a form of propulsion for deep space exploration. His research project focuses on the active control of photon pressure and the ability to steer a craft without the need for mechanical motion.
Dr. Munday is one of ten recipients receiving the award. Each awardee will receive grants as much as $200,000 per year up to three years in support of their research in specific, high-priority technology areas. Recipients will conduct research in areas closely aligned with NASA's Space Technology Roadmaps and priority as identified by the National Research Council. These priorities includes exploring the evolution of the solar system and potential for life elsewhere, extending and sustaining human activities beyond low Earth orbit, and expanding our understanding of Earth and the universe.
August 1, 2012 -- Prof. Thomas E. Murphy Named Director of IREAP
Effective August 1, 2012 Professor Thomas E. Murphy is the new Director of IREAP. Tom was born in Falls Church, Virginia, USA. He received his B.S.E.E. in electrical engineering and a B.A. in physics from Rice University in 1994, graduating summa cum laude. In 1994 he joined the NanoStructures Laboratory at MIT, where he pursued research in integrated optics and nanotechnology. He completed his M.S. degree in 1997 and his Ph.D. in 2000. In 1994, he was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship for graduate research, and in 2000 he and his colleagues received the Lemelson-MIT student team prize for innovation in telecommunications and networking. In 2000, he joined the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Optical Communications Technology Group where he studied and developed ultrafast optical communications systems. In August 2002, he joined the faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and IREAP.
He is a member of the Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and a recent recipient of the NSF CAREER and DARPA Young Faculty awards. He has been recognized for excellence in both teaching and research at UMD, having been awarded the Clark School Junior Faculty Outstanding Research Award and E. Robert Kent Outstanding Teaching Award for Junior Faculty.
His research interests include optical communications, nonlinear optics, nonlinear dynamics, microwave photonics and terahertz technology. His research broadly aims to explore new devices and techniques that improve the speed, sensitivity, resolution, and efficiency of optical communication and sensor systems.
July 2012 -- Prof. Michael Fuhrer Awarded 2012 Australian Laureate Fellowship
Michael Fuhrer (IREAP, Physics) has been awarded a 2012 Australian Laureate Fellowship, the most prestigious fellowship offered by the Australian Research Council. Up to 17 fellowships, worth $3.2M over 5 years, are awarded each year across all of science and engineering. This is the fourth year that the fellowship competition has been held. Dr. Fuhrer is one of only six foreign nationals ever to win this fellowship, and one of nine physicists/astronomers. ARC Announcement of 2012 Fellows, Fuhrer ARC webpage
July 2012 -- Dr. Yu-Hsin Chen Selected to Receive the 2012 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Doctoral Thesis Award
Dr. Yu-Hsin Chen, who received his Ph.D. in 2011, was recently selected to receive the 2012 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award. The selection was made by the Executive Committee of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics. The award, sponsored by General Atomics, Inc., recognizes exceptional young scientists who have performed original doctoral thesis research of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics. The award consists of $2,000, a certificate to be presented during the award ceremony at the banquet for the 2012 DPP Annual Meeting, and a travel allowance to the meeting of up to $500.
Yu-Hsin conducted his doctoral research in IREAP under the guidance of Prof. Howard Milchberg. His award-winning doctoral thesis was titled "The Ultrafast Nonlinear Response of Air Molecules and Its Effect on Femtosecond Laser Plasma Filaments in Atmosphere."
Yu-Hsin continues a strong tradition of recognized excellence in this field as he is the third student from the Intense Laser Matter Interactions Group to receive this award. Earlier UMD recipients include Prof. Ki-Yong Kim and Dr. Thomas Clark (JHU-APL).
July 2012 --Gary Rubloff Named Minta Martin Professor
Professor Gary Rubloff has been named a Minta Martin Professor in the A. J. Clark College of Engineering. These titles are afforded to full professors who have made significant scholarly contributions in their areas of research.
June 2012 --Dan Lathrop Garners Prestigious American Physical Society Award
Professor Dan Lathrop (IREAP/Physics/Geology) has been selected to receive the 2012 Stanley Corrsin Award from the American Physical Society. The award was established to recognize and encourage a particularly influential contribution to fundamental fluid dynamics. It consists of $5,000 and a certificate on which his name and the citation for which he will receive the prize will be inscribed. The citation that will appear on the certificate reads:
"For his striking observations of flow in a quantum fluid including detection of counter-flow that confirmed the two-fluid picture of quantum fluid, observation and characterization of reconnections of quantized vortices, and the discovery of an inverse-cube tail in the velocity distribution of superfluid turbulence."
June 2012 -- Kerstin Nordstrom Awarded AAAS Mass Media Fellowship
Kerstin Nordstrom, a postdoctoral research associate working in Wolfgang Losert's Group, has been awarded a AAAS Mass Media Fellowship. The program is highly competitive and awards are given to only 12 fellowships each year. Fellows are required to be science students or recent graduates and are placed as reporters at news outlets across the country. The fellowship is designed to train future scientists to become more effective communicators and also for them to realize the importance of communicating science to the public. In turn, the placement sites have a science expert in their newsroom over the summer. Dr. Nordstrom's placement is at the Raleigh News & Observer in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. She will return to UMD in August where she will continue work in the laboratory of Wolfgang Losert investigating impacts into granular materials and the dynamics of cells. The AAAS Mass Media Fellowship is sponsored by the American Physical Society. The fellowship for Dr. Nordstrom is supplemented by the University of Maryland Department of Physics and IPST.
June 2012 -- Joshua Parker Receives the Department of Defense's SMART Scholarship
Joshua Parker, a second year Physics graduate student mentored by Wolfgang Losert, is the recipient of the Department of Defense's SMART Scholarship (Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation). In addition to a stipend, the scholarship covers all tuition and education-related fees, provides compensation for health insurance, and includes a book allowance for up to three years. Joshua is working in Wolfgang Losert's group analyzing biological measurements and simulating the dynamics of the cell's scaffolding.
June 2012 -- Matt Harrington Receives a Chateaubriand Fellowship
Matt Harrington, a second year Physics graduate student working in Wolfgang Losert's laboratory, received a Chateaubriand Fellowship. The Chateaubriand Fellowship is an international research fellowship awarded annually by the Embassy of France in the United States, Office of Science and Technology. The award allows doctoral students at American universities to carry out scientific research as a visiting student at a French university or laboratory for a period of 4-10 months. The Chateaubriand Fellowship also provides an avenue for the student to receive a cotutelle (double degree) from the two universities, co-supervised by the student's advisors at the American and French universities. Matt will be working in Rennes at the University of Rennes for 6 months under the supervision of Renaud Delannay and Patrick Richard. While in Rennes, Matt will be investigating the dynamics of sheared granular materials.
June 2012 -- Rami Kishek Promoted to Research Professor
Rami Kishek (IREAP) has been promoted to Research Professor. Dr. Kishek attended the Universtiy of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, where he received the B.S.E. in electrical engineering (1993), the M.S.E. in nuclear engineering (1995), and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering (1997). He is a Senior Member in the IEEE. His research interests revolve on the electrodynamics of swarms of particles interacting through long range forces. Such collective interactions underlie many problems in modern physics, from laboratory plasmas to galactic dynamics. Dr. Kishek is heavily involved in the development of the University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER).
May 2012 -- Luke Johnson, Winner of IREAP Graduate Student Seminars
Luke Johnson, advised by Prof. Tom Antonsen, has been awarded as the "Best Speaker" for the IREAP Graduate Students Seminars for Spring 2012 for his presentation titled "Propagation Effects on THz Generation from Ionizing Two Color Laser Pulses". A special mention also goes to John Platig, advised by Prof. Ed Ott, who was a close runner-up for this award. Winners are selected by fellow graduate students who rate the speaker on a scale of 1-5 for both Technical Merit and Presentation. The total score is averaged and the highest scoring speaker at the end of the semester receives a monetary prize for "Best Speaker."
May 2012 -- Edo Waks Is Promoted to Associate Professor
Edo Waks (IREAP/ECE) has been promoted to the position of Associate Professor with tenure. Dr. Waks received his B.S. and M.S.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, in 1995 and 1996, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2003 from Stanford University under the direction of Professor Yoshihisa Yamamoto in the field of quantum optics and quantum information.
He joined IREAP and ECE in the fall of 2006 as an assistant professor and currently oversees the Maryland Nanophotonics and Quantum Optics Group. He is a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute.
May 2012 -- Abhishek Motayed and Co-Inventors Win UMD 25th Invention of the Year Award
Picture (left to right): Abhishek Motayed (winner), Executive Director of OTC Gayatri Varma, USM Chancellor William E. Kirwan, UMD President Wallace Loh, UMD Vice President for Research Patrick O'Shea, and Winners - Mulpuri V. Rao and Geetha Aluri
Abhishek Motayed (IREAP), Geetha Aluri, Albert V. Davydov, Mulpuri V. Rao, and Vladimir P. Oleshko (University of Maryland, in collaboration with the National Institute for Standards and Technology and George Mason University) were honored as recipients of the University of Maryland's 25th Annual Invention of the Year Award for their invention of a nano-engineered chemical sensor for low-cost detection of explosives, pollutants, and other targeted applications.
Winners were selected by an independent panel of judges, from on and off campus, who vote for the Invention of the Year in the following categories: Information, Life, and Physical Sciences.
The awards ceremony, hosted by the University of Maryland's Office of Technology Commercialization, was held on April 17, 2012 on the College Park campus.
(http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=2671)
March 2012 -- Edward Ott Named 2012 SIAM Fellow
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) has announced its Class of 2012 Fellows. The 2012 Class includes 35 academics and professionals from the field of applied mathematics and computations. Professor Ott (IREAP/Physics) is being recognized for the breadth, depth, and vitality of his investigations of nonlinear dynamical systems, which highlight both theory and application. His area of focus is in the basic theory and applications of- nonlinear dynamics, with current pc rojects in wave chaos; dynamics on large interconnected networks; chaotic dynamics of fluids; and weather prediction. The Class of 2012 Fellows will be honored at the SIAM Annual Meeting which will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 2012.
February 2012 -- Professor James Drake - Fellow of American Geophysical Union
Prof. James Drake (IREAP, Physics, IPST) has been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). To be elected a Fellow is a special tribute for those who have made exceptional scientific contributions. Nominated Fellows must have attained acknowledged eminence in the Earth and space sciences. Primary criteria for evaluation in scientific eminence are major breakthrough/discovery and paradigm shift. This designation is conferred upon not more than 0.1% of all AGU members in any given year.
February 2012 -- Asst. Prof. Oded Rabin Receives NSF CAREER Award
Asst. Prof. Oded Rabin was recently selected to receive an NSF CAREER award for his proposal entitled "Plasmonics with a Twist - Chiral Nanostructures for Advanced Spectroscopy." The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. CAREER awards offer 5 years of research support for junior faculty and are among the most competitive of NSF grants.
January 2012 -- Chad Ropp Selected as ECE Distinguished Dissertation Fellow
Chad Ropp, advised by Prof. Edo Waks, is one of four Electrical and Computer Engineering PH.D. students to have been selected as an ECE Distinguished Dissertation Fellow for 2011-2012. The fellowships are awarded to outstanding students in the final stages of dissertation work in recognition of their research excellence. The recipients receive a monetary award and are scheduled to present as a part of the ECE Graduate Student Association (ECEGSA) seminar series.
January 2012 -- Assoc. Prof. Thomas Murphy, Interim Director of IREAP
Effective February 1, 2012, Prof. Thomas Murphy will be the Interim Director of IREAP. Thomas Murphy is an Associate Professor in IREAP with an affiliate appointment with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include optical communications, nonlinear optics, short-pulse phenomena, numerical simulation, optical pulse propagation, nanotechnology, and integrated photonics. Related website: Photonics Research Laboratory.
January 2012 -- Prof. Daniel Lathrop Appointed Associate Dean for Research, CMNS
Prof. Daniel Lathrop, currently the Director of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, has been appointed the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS) effective February 1, 2012. He will work on identifying new opportunities for funded faculty research through large scale grants and on encouraging and supporting the development of successful proposals for these; strengthening old and building new partnerships with federal laboratories and agencies; increasing program development with support from private foundations and enhancing opportunities with the private sector; and encouraging new area of interdisciplinary collaboration by college faculty.
January 2012 -- Dr. Thomas Antonsen, IEEE Fellow
Each year the IEEE Fellow Committee recommends a select group of recipients to be elevated to IEEE Fellow, one of the Association's most prestigious honors. Effective January 2012, Professor Thomas Antonsen has been selected as an IEEE Fellow for his contribution to the theory of magnetically confined plasmas, laser-plasma interactions and high power coherent radiation sources.
November 2011 -- Dr. Gregory Nusinovich Awarded Kenneth J. Button Prize
Dr. Gregory Nusinovich, an internationally recognized expert in the production of electromagnetic waves from plasma devices, is to be awarded the Kenneth J. Button Prize for 2012 for his outstanding contributions to the science of the electromagnetic spectrum. The prize is administered by the Institute of Physics (Britain's equivalent to the American Physical Society) and carries a medal, certificate, a bucket of pounds sterling, and a plenary lecture at the International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter and Terahertz Waves.
Prof. O'Shea Named Vice President for Research
Patrick G. O'Shea (ECE), who has an affiliate appointment with IREAP and Physics, has been named the Vice President for Research and Senior Research Officer of the University of Maryland. Pat was previously the Director of IREAP, the Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Executive Director of the Maryland Center for Applied Electromagetics, and Co-Director of the Maryland Cyber Security Center.
Dr. Parvez Guzdar -- In Memoriam
Dr. Parvez Guzdar, Senior Research Scientist in IREAP, passed away on Friday, July 15, 2011. He received his doctorate in physics from Gujarat University in 1979, came to the United States in 1976 to pursue post-doctoral work at Princeton University, and joined the University of Maryland in 1978. Parvez spent a long career at the University of Maryland as a Plasma Theorist, as well as an expert in computational science
and nonlinear dynamics. He had a great enthusiasm for
science and a kind and thoughtful manner. (July 2011)
Dr. Martin Reiser -- In Memoriam
Martin Reiser, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and co-founder of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP), passed away on Sunday, May 1, 2011, three weeks after celebrating his 80th birthday. Throughout his long career at the University of Maryland, which began in 1965, he contributed greatly to the success of the university's vibrant research programs. Having begun with the design of the Maryland Cyclotron, he moved on to form the Charged Particle Beam Group. He also led the creation of the University of Maryland's applied electromagnetics and beam physics programs. Both nationally and internationally, he played a major role in establishing particle beam physics as an academic discipline, and was one of the leaders in the creation of the Beam Physics Division at the American Physical Society in the late 1980s. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and of the IEEE, and he served on numerous national and international committees. He served as chair of the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Physics of Beams, and of the Program Committee for the 1997 Particle Accelerator Conference in Vancouver, and president of the Washington DC Chapter of the Alexander von Humboldt Association of America. (2011)
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Dr. Edo Waks Receives Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers
Dr. Waks was one of 85 researchers named by President Obama as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). This is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.
